Plural of מקוה

Check out this recent post over at Daily Leaf. In a nutshell - what is the proper plural form of מקוה?

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Plurals and Pairs

Cross-post from my דף יומי blog.

Purify or Be Purified

I don't know whether there exists a genre of dvar Torah called "Simchas-Torah Torah", similar to "Purim Torah".  If there isn't yet, I will create it:

During Hakafot today someone led the tzibbur in the song whose words come from the last mishna in Yoma:

http://www.piyut.org.il/textual/484.html

אמר רבי עקיבא, אשריכם ישראל, לפני מי אתם מִטַּהרין, ומי מטהר אתכם, אביכם שבשמים, ....

ואומר, מקוה ישראל ה׳, מה מקוה מטהר את הטמאים, אף הקדוש ברוך הוא מטהר את ישראל.

If he sang מְטַהרין instead of מִטַּהרין, does he have to sing the song again?

זכור

After מעריב on כל נדרי night (hey, some people are always thinking דקדוק) someone asked me what determines when זְכֹר with a שוא is used as opposed to זָכוֹר with a קמץ. The catalyst for the question was likely זכר כי עפר אנחנו in אבינו מלכנו. It would seem that there is no actual difference in meaning between the two. One interesting clue that occurred to me was that we always find זָכוֹר followed by the word את, as in זכור את אשר עשה לך עמלק and זכור את יום השבת לקדשו. And it seems that זְכֹר is never followed by את, for example, זכר אל תשכח and זכר ימות עולם. Has anyone seen anything specific on this?

Reish

Interesting short article on pronunciation of the ר:

The partial view: The" Brisker Reish", authentic and correct way how to Pronounce the letter "ר"

Shin and Sin

Cross-reference from The Daily Leaf.